PUBLIC POETRY PROJECT

A celebration of poems to the people

Many people who have read Judith Vollmer’s “The Coffee
Line” have had the image of the burner, “the wedding
ring of night & morning fused” linger in their minds
for weeks and months afterward, so powerful is its use here.

Gerry Jones represents the young Walter Dean Myers sitting and
reading in his Harlem tower and gauging whether the action below
is enough to take his eyes off the page. Usually the book wins,
but the sights, sounds, and smells still find their way into the
soul of the poet and the minds of his characters.

Gary Fincke said about Lynn Emanuel’s “The Planet
Krypton,” “I've loved this poem since I heard Lynn
read it . . . it's so well observed and takes its images under
the surface to where the ‘real poem’ lies.”

Barbara Crooker said about Jeanne Murray Walker’s “So
Far, So Good,” “One of the many things I admire about
it is its telescopic quality, the way it zooms way out there to
the universe, to the eye of God, and back again, firmly grounded
in the things of the world, plastic placemats, spaghetti, mashed
potatoes.”

Deirdre O’Connor said of Ron Mohring’s “The
Company We Keep,” “There's something childlike in
both the sound-driven language and in the act of collecting crayfish
that is gently but usefully undermined by the conclusion that
we human beings insist on our dominion.”